75 years of Innovators: Richard Courant

In the 75 years since Machine Design began publication, here are some of the people who have changed the way we live.

Richard CourantFirst in FEA1888-1972

It lets them test "virtual products" in cyberspace under varying structural and thermal loads, or different air and fluid flows, to see if the designs will operate in real-world conditions. It was initially developed by Richard Courant, a German mathematician. As a math professor at the University of New York, he first used FEA in 1943, though the term "FEA" didn't come on the scene until 1960. The first application was in the form of the Ritz numerical analysis and minimization to solve vibration problems. But it took the development of desktop computing and low-priced computing power to make the number-crunching analysis as widespread as it is today.